Obama's narrative

By Donovan Slack

01/01/13 11:13 AM EST

At the tail end of a great piece by POLITICO's Glenn Thrush on the home page, is this nugget:

Now that he’s won, Obama holds the power to write his own history, literally. His biggest early success came as a memoir author, not as a politician, and he plans to write the definitive narrative of his presidency after 2016, according to two people close to the president.

Whatever he writes, they believe, will include not only his candid account of his battles with Romney and Boehner, but a frank discussion of a topic he has been reluctant to address in depth during his four years in office — the role of race in American political life and his own career.

“He doesn’t need to await the verdict of history,” said an Obama insider during the last days of the campaign. “He’ll write it himself.”

Whether the second term includes enough historic accomplishments to feature prominently in his "definitive narrative" or whether it becomes something of an epilogue to those of his first term - health care reform, financial reform, ending the war in Iraq - remains to be seen.

As Thrush points out, draining political capital in battles with congressional Republicans over fiscal issues like the cliff, debt ceiling, and deficits, may hinder his ability to secure accomplishments that history may remember more. And that may make for better reading in a presidential memoir.